Dreams of Falling
by Rhianwen
Summary: On her first night with her new roommate, Wendy learns a few unpleasant lessons about caring for a baby. Well, for this baby, at any rate. Featuring Baby!Junior, Confused!Wendy, and Annoyed!Joker. Absurdity warning is in effect.


Dreams of Falling

-------------------------------------------------------------

Summary: On her first night with her new roommate, Wendy learns a few unpleasant lessons about caring for a baby. Well, for this baby, at any rate. Absurdity warning is in effect.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, they don't like me. The people who do own them probably wouldn't like me either, if they knew I existed. XD

-------------------------------------------------------------

As the uncontested baby of the family, Wendy Earhart had spent her life in remarkably little contact with children.

The exceptions, of course, were school chums and neighbourhood youngsters, but these were generally of her own age, and thus were not exactly _children_, as such, but _fellow_ children, which was something else entirely.

As for her brothers, the unseasonably warm mid-morning late in March that had ushered her into the world came approximately three years, four months after Mikey, seven years and two months after Johnny, and an indeterminate amount of time after Mum and Dad, who generally preferred their ages left unspecified. All of this left decidedly little opportunity for the young lady to experience the joys of squalling infants, soiled nappies, and slimy baby food landing in her hair when a much younger somebody decided that they weren't hungry just now.

And perhaps because all of these things were absent from her naturally _very_ broad experience of the world, Wendy would always reply, when asked, that she was quite fond of children.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, and perhaps a few who were not as well, Mr. Joseph Carpenter had always been wont to take Wendy at her word (as well as any other way that might present itself, a favoured activity of both). Thus, he neatly disregarded, perhaps due to his own blissful ignorance on the matter, the universal truth that a deep and abiding love of children most often resulted from either a certain degree of head trauma, or a woeful lack of experience with the aforementioned little ones.

Therefore, when he found himself in a situation that had deposited a small infant directly into his awkward and exceedingly unwilling arms, his first thought was of Wendy, for more reasons than that some of the activities they most enjoyed together generally resulted in babies, if one was not careful.

"It should only be for a few nights," he said, untruthfully.

"Honestly, Mr. Joker, I don't mind at all," she assured him, completely truthfully, although extremely uninformedly, snuggling the tiny mite wrapped in fleecy blue far less skillfully than she imagined.

Junior, all of three weeks old, had not yet learned what was and wasn't a proper snuggle, and thus had nothing to compare this one to. He was, however, reasonably certain that a proper snuggle did not involve a chin in his eye. He whimpered softly in protest.

"Ohh, hush, sweetheart, it's alright," Wendy cooed soothingly, giving the infant another vigorous snuggle.

Joker watched with an amused smile.

"I think you two might get on well after all."

His expression grew distinctly less amused when he found himself entirely ignored in favour of the handsome little fellow, about a ninetieth of his age, nestled in the arms of a delighted female who had just discovered that by lightly tickling the baby's palm, she could make those adorable tiny fingers cling around hers.

"Right; we'll have to do something about this."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unbeknownst to Joker, and doubly so to Wendy (although perhaps already very well known to Junior, who would be repeatedly described throughout his life by various angry grown-ups as "far smarter than he lets on, and a right smartass on top of it"), there would, in the end, be absolutely no need of doing _anything_ to fix the problem of Wendy's becoming too attached to her tiny silver-haired roomie (because after all, it was one thing if he _told_ her to, but a right-hand gal who made her own friends of her own volition could be a dangerous creature).

It would be much later that evening, when _today_ was already beginning to meld with _tomorrow_ and turn into _yesterday_. Long after three joyous hours of bouncing the baby, feeding the baby, snuggling the baby (this time without lodging anything in his eye that did not belong there, much to his approval), and watching the baby as he slept, the first inkling would come to Wendy that perhaps her claim to be fond of children was a bit uninformed.

It would come, in the wee small hours of the morning, just as she had begun to drop off to sleep (thanks to that bloody addictive Nintendogs game her brother had sent for Christmas) in the form of a thump and a plaintive little wail.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Already uttering a stream of horrified, entirely incoherent exclamations, Wendy leapt from the safe, warm haven of bed, and hurried out to the living room.

"Poor thing!" she crooned, scooping a very annoyed Junior off the floor directly beneath the crib and cuddling him close. "I'm so sorry, sweetie! I mustn't have put your beddie-bye together properly!"

After a quick check to ensure that nothing was broken, she tucked Junior securely into her own bed, and went about her inspection of the pram.

Five exceedingly thorough minutes later, she frowned, confused. Everything seemed to be securely in place. But if that was so, how on earth had he fallen out at all?

"Oh, well," she sighed, the brief rush of adrenaline beginning to wear off and leaving her with nothing but a sleepy haze once again. "Mum always said that children had an uncanny ability to bend the laws of physics. Maybe he just…crawled through the bars, or something. Don't know how, when his _head_ couldn't even fit through, but now that he's found out it hurts, he probably won't do it again."

So deciding, after a vigorous bout of hushing to the skeptical voice in the back of her mind warning her against putting him somewhere that he'd escaped from once, she trudged back into her bedroom to retrieve a blissfully snoozing Junior, tucked him back into the snug nest of blankets, and escaped to her own similar nest.

And all was well, for a time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, no, not again!" Wendy moaned despairingly as another soft thump and corresponding infantile cry of outrage jerked her once again from sleep.

Sprinting back to the living room, she scooped the baby off the floor and gave him a comforting snuggle.

"Honestly, love, how do you keep doing that?"

Junior, predictably, said nothing, instead watching his hostess with big, round claret eyes. She giggled, and dropped a light kiss at his forehead.

"Ohh, what a little sweetheart!"

Thus lulled by the tiny fellow's sheer cuteness into a false sense of security, Wendy settled him snugly back into the crib, tucked the blankets around him, and trudged back to bed.

If it happened again, she decided blurrily as she dropped back off to sleep, she would correct the problem with duct tape.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Twenty minutes later saw Wendy searching not for duct tape, but for a series of chairs to line up along one side of her bed.

It had taken a while for the idea to completely penetrate her exceedingly sleep-addled, and sleep-deprivation-addled mind, but eventually, after her fifteenth inconclusive examination of Junior's bed, it had occurred to her that this was a huge, and unnecessary waste of time. Was there not, after all, an entire half a queen-sized bed left entirely unoccupied by Mr. Joker's uncharacteristic refusal of her timidly uttered invitation? Why not, then, just tuck Junior in next to her? Of course she would need to make sure he didn't roll out the other side; hence the chairs.

"Don't worry, Junior, you'll be safe now," she assured the infant watching her curiously. "Unless," she added with a giggle, "you roll right through the chairs."

Junior continued to watch, and to blink, and to look so altogether solemn and funny that Wendy couldn't resist giving him one more snuggle before flipping off the bedside lamp and falling almost immediately into a badly-needed sleep.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Bloody hell!" she wailed fifteen minutes later, near tears, fishing an also wailing Junior out from under her bed.

Mr. Joker's home phone number. He'd changed it recently, certain that someone or other was stalking him, and although her memory was usually very good, three in the morning was not one of those times, even without the squalling baby, who was apparently beginning to feel those trips to the floor.

"I'm so sorry to wake you up at this time of night, Mr. Joker," she burst out hurriedly when the sleepily annoyed voice of her boss murmured the phone number at the other end of the line, "but something very strange is happening with Junior. I know I've put his crib together properly, because I've done it twenty-seven times by now, and there aren't any spaces big enough for him to fit through, but he keeps falling out! He's done it three times, and he fell out of my bed once, which is nearly impossible, because I lined up all those big heavy dining room chairs up along the other side, and I know he didn't roll out my side, because I'm sure I would have noticed that, and babies don't usually learn to roll over after three weeks, do they?"

The sleepily annoyed voice heaved a long sigh.

"Wendy, calm down. Do you recall a little talk that we had earlier, about Junior's...abnormalities?"

She blinked tearwet lashes and said nothing, as she, in fact, did not recall. Joker sighed again. Perhaps if you'd been listening, instead of tittering like an imbecile every time the brat sneezed...

"You have no recollection of the special considerations we had to make when dealing with this little boy?"

"Special considerations, Sir?" she repeated timidly. "What do you mean?"

"The same considerations we had to take into account when dealing with his mother?"

Another long pause, and several more tearwet blinks.

"H-his mother, Sir?"

"Yes, his mother," Joker confirmed through gritted teeth, making a mental note to give his secretary several days off once the child was settled. Apparently, she was well near useless while overtired. "Nancy Makuhari. The woman who could stroll through solid concrete. Do you understand now?"

"Yes, but--"

"Good."

"But Mr. Joker, you said he wouldn't be able to use his abilities without training!"

"Apparently, I was wrong. I'm as shocked as you are, Wendy, but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to alert the media. For now, just go back to sleep and let the child sleep on the floor."

The emphatic click at the other end of the line announced clearly that the conversation had ended. Wendy gaped for several seconds at the phone.

"What a mean, horrid man!" she exclaimed. "What decent human being would leave a child alone and frightened, on a hard, uncomfortable floor all night, without a blanket, or a pillow, or--"

Here, Wendy broke off, a light of pure inspiration washing over her face. Elated by the certainty that she had finally discovered a truly foolproof solution, she gave Junior an impulsive hug, and then set about putting her plan into action.

Five minutes later, the little blonde was snoozing blissfully away in her bed, the red-eyed infant snoozing likewise in his crib, beneath which was a network of safety-pillows.

Finally, finally, some rest would be had within the modest London flat.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And so, when Wendy heard, as she was dropping off to sleep, a much softer thud and wail than the previous dozen (give or take - it felt like at least a dozen by this point) had been, she drowsily dismissed it as the invention of a troubled mind unwilling to fully accept that the evening's ordeal was finally over.

When, approximately five minutes later, she heard a series of sharp taps at the front door, she whimpered a soft, watered-down curse, dragged herself from the bed, and hurried to answer.

And finally, when she opened the front door to reveal an elderly gentleman she vaguely recognized as her neighbour from downstairs, bushy mustache bristling with annoyance, and a chillingly familiar baby tucked under his left arm, she groaned.

"This belong to you?" the man asked brusquely, shoving a surprisingly happy Junior at her.

She accepted the proffered child, murmured a lame apology for the trouble, and leaned wearily against the closed door.

"I really, really hate children."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

End Notes: Yes, I know that the show gave us a dramatic and angst-fuelled reason for Wendy's dislike of her transparent little roomie, but darnit, the mental image of Baby!Junior dropping through the floor and landing on an elderly gentleman's snuggly, squashy belly, much to said gentleman's annoyance, was just adorable. XD


End file.
